This invention relates to a tool holder for use with tools for performing maintenance on communications cables or the like.
In the telecommunications industry, there often arises a need to splice two multi-conductor cables together. Such cables may contain thousands of wire or conductor pairs requiring splicing. Splicing is usually performed using a specialized tool or tools adapted for that purpose. With thousands of wire or conductor pairs to splice, it is impractical to require a technician to support the tool himself as this renders the job of splicing awkward and very time consuming.
Devices have been devised to alleviate the problem of supporting the tool by providing specialized tool support apparatuses. One such device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,713,214, issued to Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company. The device described therein clamps onto opposite cables to be spliced and simplifies the task of cable splicing. However, the cables themselves are not totally rigid, and the means of clamping the tool to the cables also are not totally rigid, and thus the tool can have undesirable movement with respect to the wire pairs which increases difficulty of splicing.
Recent trends in telecommunications technology have introduced the use of cable splice enclosures which are used to enclose the splice area between the two cables. Such enclosures keep the splice dry and clean. With such an enclosure however, space is limited and devices such as that described in the above mentioned patent are rendered awkward, difficult, or even impossible to use.
Thus, there is a need for a cable working tool holder which is versatile and can be used when working on a splice in a cable splice enclosure, or can be used on splices made outside such an enclosure.